Favorite thing: The most famous quote of the battle happened in Bastogne came from the 101st’s acting commander, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe. When awakened by an enemy request for his surrender, he replied “NUTS!” (his interpreter translated it as “Go to hell!”).

This is the reason why in most of the WW2 monuments you can read the word "NUTS" and you can even see jokes about it.

Favorite thing: The Siege of Bastogne was a smaller battle in and around the Belgian town of Bastogne, during the larger battle of the Bulge. Success of the German offensive, seizure of the harbor at Antwerp with encirclement and destruction of Allied armies, required the German Army mechanized forces to use the roadways in order to maintain the speed of the offensive.

All seven main roads in the Ardennes mountain range converged on the small town of Bastogne. Control of the crossroads of Bastogne was vital for both sides since Allied control acted to reduce the speed of the German advance while German control acted to increase the speed of their advance and improved resupply of the German columns as the poor weather conditions made cross country travel difficult. The battle lasted from mid-December 1944 to January 1945.

The Allied forces were soon surrounded by elements of the German Fifth Panzer Army. The Allied soldiers were outnumbered and lacking in cold-weather gear, ammunition, food, medical supplies, and leadership (as many officers, including General Maxwell Taylor, were elsewhere). Due to some of the worst winter weather in years, the surrounded Allied forces could not be resupplied by air nor was tactical air support available, requiring the defenders to make the most of what was already available. However, the German military strategy involved probing different points of the defensive perimeter in sequence, rather than attacking with a single large force (essentially violating the military principle of "mass"). This played into the American advantage of interior lines of communication and tended to dissipate the German advantage of superior numbers. As the German forces searched for a weakness in the defensive lines, the defenders were able to reposition artillery and machine gun positions to meet each successive assault.